Virginia Katz

land current

Relief Paintings and Interventions Mixed Media Debossed Prints Watercolors

My Land series of works focuses on the sublime physicality of nature associated with the cycles of flux, upheaval, and regeneration found both in the environment and as metaphors in our personal lives. Through landscape painting, the works tell a story of humanity’s dependency on , and shared nature with , the environment and its continuing evolution.

Each series in Land begins from the standpoint of form and painting’s relationship to the the picture plane. The Relief Paintings and Interventions create form from the surface outward; the Mixed Media Prints excavate below the surface of the paper inward, creating peaks and valleys in the paper through debossing; and the Watercolors attempt to disperse the image into transparency. These bodies of work attempt to reflect the various cycles of natural form through painting techniques.

My Relief Paintings represent the three-dimensional natural form that is our environment and begin from the surface outward. They are composed of inches-thick acrylic paint that becomes recreated landscape formations and scenes through various layers of manipulated paint handling. There are no supports under the paint but rather through processes of the drying time of paint, I create these representational replicas. Three-dimensional natural form enters the landscape painting genre which has been a two-dimensional painting practice.

In more recent works, the paint forms of leaves, vines and flowers are made free of the panel and are incorporated first into the landscape during Interventions before they are retrieved and recycled into paintings. My intention is to completely unite painting with landscape, its source, providing the opportunity for the man-made paint forms to become landscape. During the Interventions, the paint forms are filmed and photographed.

Settings of entanglement, variation of plant life, distressed landscapes and Interventions are metaphors for our commingled relationship with nature and landscape.

The Relief Paintings are shown on the wall and on pedestals. Interventions are integrated into various locations.

Unstable

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand on Wire and Hand Painted Egg Shells
Nest diameter 6" x 4", Complete dimensions 16” x 13” x 4”, 2021

Unstable (Intervention)

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand on Wire and Hand Painted Egg Shells Incorporated on Site
2021

Network

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand on Wire Fencing
16" x 15" x 7", 2021

Network - detail -

Symbiosis

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand and Integrated on Panel with Wire Fencing
28" x 30" panel size, 35" x 40" x 9.5" complete dimensions, 2020

Symbiosis - detail -

Remains

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand and Integrated on Panel with Wire Fencing
15" x 24" panel size, 25" x 34" x 7" complete dimensions, 2020

Remains - detail -

Relativity

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand and Integrated on Panel with Wire Fencing
24" x 15" x 5" panel dimensions
30" x 19" x 5" complete dimensions, 2019-2020

Relativity - detail -

Shared Sustainability

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand on Wire Fencing
16” x 15” x 5”, 2019

Intervention IV

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand and Incorporated (temporarily) on Site
2019

Intervention III - Rain

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand in the Studio and Incorporated (temporarily) Into the Landscape
2019

Intervention - Wind Resettlement

Acrylic Paint Forms Made by Hand in the Studio and Mingled with Plant Material (temporarily) on Location
2019

Intervention I

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand and Incorporated (temporarily) on Site
2018

Intervention I - detail -

Intervention III - Day View

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand and Incorporated (temporarily) on Site
2018

Intervention III - Night View

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand in the Studio and Incorporated (temporarily) on Location
2018

Interchange

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand and Integrated on Panel with Wire Fencing
20" x 16" x 5" panel dimensions
27" x 18" x 5" complete dimensions, 2018

Interchange - detail -

Like So Many Leaves ...

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand and Integrated on Panel with Citrine, Peridot, Chalcedony, Gold and Silver Leaf
20" x 16" x 2.5", 2018

Like So Many Leaves ... - detail -

Watershed

Acrylic Paint Formed by Hand and Integrated on Panel
20" x16" x 5", 2018

Watershed - detail -

Unsteady Ground

Acrylic Paint Formed on Panel with Pearls and Turquoise
12" x 16" x 3", 2018

Unsteady Ground- detail -

Uprooted

Acrylic Paint Formed, Peeled, Cut and Sanded on Panel with Aquamarine, Citrine, Uncut and Cut Diamonds,
Black Tourmaline, Rutilated Quartz and Malachite
20" x 16" x 4", 2017

Uprooted - pedestal view -

Uprooted - detail -

Recomposition

Acrylic Paint Formed, Torn, Cut and Sanded on Panel with Topaz, Amethyst, Ametrine and Quartz Crystals
20" x 16" x 5", 2017

Recomposition - detail -

Debris Field

Acrylic Paint Formed, Peeled, Cut and Sanded on Panel
12” x 16” x 4”, 2017

Debris Field - detail -

Dry Bed

Acrylic on Panel
20” x 16” x 4”, 2015

Dry Bed - detail -

Breakdown, two views

Acrylic Paint Formed, Peeled, Cut and Sanded on Panel
52” x 72” x 6”, 2015

Breakdown - detail -

Breakdown - Exhibition View -

Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA

Studio View

Acrylic Paint Formed, Peeled, Cut and Sanded

Installation View

Relief Paintings and Interventions Mixed Media Debossed Prints Watercolors

In 2006 I began viewing satellite photography of Earth on a regular basis coupled with my observations of aerial views when traveling by plane. Since our origins, as people, are comingled with our Earth, thoughts of its surface as a containment vessel or anthropomorphized skin, deepened my awareness of the many literal and metaphorical connections that we share with the environmental form in which we live. I then began recreating imagined topographical land formations on paper, employing multi-layered processes through printmaking, drawing, and painting.

These works excavate below the surface and began as monoprints which were then printed onto a collagraph. The process continues with stages of drawing and painting and are one-of-a-kind, original prints. Natural materials, such as leaves, vines, tree bark, and soil were incorporated into the transfers to bring the landscape literally into the work, embedding their form into the surface of the paper through a process called debossing. The effect is intended to provide dimension to the paper and parallels the impact that man and nature impose on the land, associating the natural elements of the terrain with our shared, continuing evolution.